The Colorado statute of limitations sets how long you have to file a civil lawsuit or how long prosecutors have to bring criminal charges, and the window ranges from 182 days for notice of a claim against a government entity to no limit at all for offenses like murder. The specific deadline depends on the type of claim, when the injury was discovered, and whether any tolling rule applies. Missing the deadline almost always ends the case, no matter how strong the underlying facts.
Civil Filing Deadlines by Claim Type
Most personal injury and tort claims in Colorado carry a two-year deadline from the date of injury. That covers negligence, slip-and-fall injuries, dog bites, trespass, and similar actions.1Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-80-102 – General Limitation of Actions – Two Years Wrongful death actions also run two years, measured from the date of death rather than the underlying act.
Motor vehicle cases are the major exception. If a car, truck, or motorcycle crash caused bodily injury or property damage, you have three years from the date of the accident to file.2Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-80-101 – General Limitation of Actions – Three Years Confusing the two-year tort rule with the three-year vehicle rule is a common and expensive mistake.
Defamation has the shortest civil deadline. Libel and slander claims must be filed within one year of the statement.3Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-80-103 – General Limitation of Actions – One Year
Contract deadlines split by format. Written contracts get six years.4Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-80-103.5 – General Limitation of Actions – Six Years Oral contracts fall under the general three-year limitation.2Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-80-101 – General Limitation of Actions – Three Years Fraud, misrepresentation, and concealment claims also carry three years, with the clock starting when the fraud was discovered or reasonably should have been.
Medical malpractice must be filed within two years of when the patient discovered the injury or reasonably should have discovered it.5Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-80-102.5 – Limitation of Actions – Medical Malpractice But Colorado layers an absolute three-year cap over that, running from the date of the alleged malpractice itself. The only recognized exception involves a foreign object left inside the body during surgery, which can extend the outer deadline.
Claims Against Government Entities
Suing a Colorado government body or public employee starts with a step that catches many people off guard. Before you can file a lawsuit, you must submit a written notice of claim within 182 days of discovering the injury.6FindLaw. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 24 Section 24-10-109 – Notice Required That is roughly six months, far shorter than the private-party windows. Colorado treats this as a jurisdictional requirement, so missing it permanently bars the claim regardless of merit.
Federal claims run on a separate track under the Federal Tort Claims Act. You must first file an administrative claim with the responsible federal agency within two years of the incident.7U.S. Office of Personnel Management. How Much Time Do I Have to File a Claim Under the Federal Tort Claims Act If the agency denies the claim, you have six months from the date of the denial letter to sue in federal court.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States
Workplace Discrimination Deadlines
Employment discrimination claims run on a much tighter clock than other civil lawsuits. A complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division must be filed within 300 days of the discriminatory act.9Colorado Civil Rights Division. The Complaint Process The federal EEOC generally allows 180 days, extended to 300 in states like Colorado that have their own enforcement agency.10U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge Federal employees have a much shorter window and generally must contact their agency’s EEO counselor within 45 days. Equal Pay Act claims work differently, allowing employees to go directly to court within two years of the last discriminatory paycheck, or three if the violation was willful.
Criminal Prosecution Deadlines
Criminal deadlines in Colorado track the severity of the offense.11Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 16 Section 16-5-401 – Limitation for Commencing Criminal Proceedings
- No time limit for murder, kidnapping, treason, and certain other serious offenses.
- Twenty years for most sexual assault charges if reported within that period; no limit at all when DNA evidence identifies the offender.
- Five years for certain crimes including unlawful sexual contact and financial offenses like securities fraud, often measured from discovery.
- Three years for most other felonies.
- Eighteen months for misdemeanors.
- Six months for petty offenses such as minor disorderly conduct.
The criminal clock can be tolled when the accused is absent from Colorado, effectively pausing until they return.
When the Clock Starts
Not every deadline begins on the day of the harmful event. Under Colorado’s discovery rule, a cause of action accrues when both the injury and its cause are known or reasonably should have been known.12Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-80-108 – When a Cause of Action Accrues If you couldn’t reasonably have known you were harmed, the filing window doesn’t start until you had reason to know.
The rule matters most in fraud cases, latent injuries, and medical malpractice. A patient who develops complications years after surgery may not have reasonably known of the injury at the time. In that scenario, the two-year malpractice clock starts from the date of discovery or when a reasonable person would have noticed. Discovery does not give plaintiffs unlimited time, though: statutes of repose set a hard outer boundary that discovery cannot push past.
When Deadlines Pause
Several circumstances toll a Colorado statute of limitations.
Minors and Incapacitated Persons
When the person with the claim is a minor, the statute does not begin running until they turn 18.13Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-81-103 – Statute Begins to Run – When A child injured at age 10 in a slip-and-fall would have until age 20 to file a two-year tort claim. The same tolling applies to people mentally incapacitated when the claim arises.
Defendant Absent From Colorado
When a defendant leaves the state after the cause of action arises, the time they spend out of state may not count toward the limitation period. The clock pauses while they are gone and resumes when they return, so a defendant cannot simply wait out the deadline in another state.
Military Service
The federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act excludes active-duty military service from any state or federal statute of limitations calculation.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 U.S. Code 3936 – Statute of Limitations If a claim arises during deployment, the deadline is paused for the entire service period, and the protection covers claims both by and against the servicemember.
Equitable Tolling
Even without a statutory tolling provision, a court may apply equitable tolling in extraordinary circumstances. Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s standard, a plaintiff must show two things: they pursued their rights diligently, and some extraordinary circumstance beyond their control made timely filing impossible. Being unaware of the deadline or choosing to wait does not qualify.
Child Sexual Abuse Claims
Colorado’s Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act removed the deadline for civil claims arising from abuse that occurred on or after January 1, 2022.15Colorado General Assembly. SB21-088 Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act The law also opened a temporary lookback window for survivors of abuse between 1960 and 2022, but that window closed on January 1, 2025. Survivors of post-2022 abuse retain the right to file at any time.
Statutes of Repose: The Hard Cutoff
A statute of repose works differently from a statute of limitations in a way that catches even experienced litigants. A limitations period starts running when the injury is discovered; a repose period starts from the defendant’s last act, whether anyone has been injured yet or not. It is an absolute backstop that no tolling or late discovery can override.
Construction defect claims illustrate the point. An action against an architect, contractor, engineer, or builder must be filed within the normal two-year tort deadline after the claim arises, but never more than six years after substantial completion of the project.16Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-80-104 – Limitation of Actions Against Architects, Contractors, Builders, Engineers, and Others A defect surfacing in the fifth or sixth year gives the owner two years from discovery to file. After six years from substantial completion, no new claims can arise. Medical malpractice carries its own three-year repose alongside the two-year discovery-based deadline.5Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-80-102.5 – Limitation of Actions – Medical Malpractice
What Happens When You Miss the Deadline
In most cases, missing a filing deadline means permanent loss of the claim. File a civil lawsuit after the statute has run and the defendant can move to dismiss, and the court will grant it. In a criminal case, a defendant can raise the expired deadline as a bar to prosecution. Colorado law treats these deadlines as non-negotiable.
The stakes climb when multiple deadlines overlap. A car accident involving a government vehicle triggers both the 182-day notice-of-claim requirement and the three-year motor vehicle tort deadline; missing either kills the claim. A workplace injury may involve a workers’ compensation notice requirement (Colorado requires written notice to the employer within 10 working days) alongside a potential personal injury claim with its own statute of limitations.17Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Reporting Your Injury Tracking parallel deadlines is where legal advice makes the biggest difference, because getting one wrong carries the same consequence as getting them all wrong.